Replying To nobull456:  "That "DISASTER " that was winning the Tailteann Cup ? Trying to make sense of that one statement. I still think the massive majority of supporters see this win as a step forward on the road to bigger things at some point . Was the win an achievementfor for this group.....YES of course it was !All concerned had to learn along the way in order to improve. So whats the overall vibe now....good enjoyable learning atmospere as described by playing panel.Good platform to build on ....but o Rourke had nothing to do with that ....well maybe ! and maybe not!
Disaster ? = not what i hoped would happen.i have commited myself in writing to saying this man is not up to it !
Well what can i do now to downgrade the win and save face . Well go silent for a few days..and then ? Invent some speculation about who said what and when and state these as facts..O Rourke is not up to it anyway cos i said so OBut would i get away with doing that? would i what? on reflection ..i do it all the time ,and very little challenge .Well yer man that talks in riddles ,i had hoped he would go away together with the other 1 or 2. ..Anyway it seems i cant get any traction on this anti COR ,and maybe i might have to take more time out to find more speculation .With a bit of luck i could be saved by the bell cause i think this forum might just go on holidays soon . Maybe i could really have an honest look and see can i still call myself a supporter of the team ,or am i seen as a supporting act just providing amusement but not really about football Ah....have you been constructive ? not yet !"

Replying To royaldunne:  "Top 16 played in all ire. Next 16 played in TC. We won that so we are ranked 17th by virtue of the new system. That is a fact that can't be denied. It just happens to be how it panned out."

Replying To royaldunne:  "You do talk in such nonsensical terms. Yea it was a disaster to end up in the tailteann cup. The only saving grace is that we got a ticket to the actual only championship that counts. Cause can anyone actually hand on heart say unless we get in a proper coach we wouldn't end up here next year again ??
Orurke (who still hasn't convinced me he has good judgement) did turn back on his ways that caused us to be in the tailteann cup. But we won it been the highest ranked team beating div 3 and 4 teams which was great for the players. Btw I was on plenty I'm happy for the players who endured so much over the last 2 years. They finally had something to cheer about . But I am not convinced in the slightest that orurke is in any way a ic manager. I hope to be proved wrong. But unless a real coach is brought in it won't happen.
As always
Hon the royal"

Replying To royaldunne:  "Yeah it ain't a new team. This talk of Colm bringing them in is not accurate, coffee , Flynn O'Connor hickey Costello etc we're all there."

Replying To royaldunne:  "Yeah it ain't a new team. This talk of Colm bringing them in is not accurate, coffee , Flynn O'Connor hickey Costello etc we're all there."

Replying To winatallcost:  "Oh sure why not say Sean Boylan didn't win an All-Ireland until 1996. Sure alot of the players were there with Mick O Brien and Des Ferguson that won All-Irelands in 87 & 88."

Replying To bdbuddah:  "We have a lot of new players and existing players who have been brought to the fore under COR that weren't to the fore before.
You need to move on from thinking saying anything positive about COR must be a slight against Andy.
Andy did well in his 6 years, but, as you said your self after 6 years we needed a new voice.
It's time to move on."

Replying To Blackspot09:  "Who said Colm didn't win the Tailtean cup???

Its just being pointed out that although yes he has blooded some new players and credit to him for that this is certainly not a new team and that the majority of the match day squad are established players with 2 years under their belts of of playing regularly for Meath.

Every new manager bloods new players. Andy did it MOD did it Banty did it and COR has done it but the narrative that this is a completely new team he built from scratch is just inaccurate."

Replying To winatallcost:  "Well 12 or 13 with championship debuts in a single season would be considered quite significant change would it not? What is the definition of a new team? Is there actually such thing unless a complete change in personnel from 1-15 takes place or perhaps maybe on the club scene in Meath, Eastern Gaels's is a new team. Maybe this is the level of new you are looking for. I would have considered 1996 as a new team under Sean Boylan but looking back there were maybe only four championship debutants and a few positional changes. I don't really get the narrative here at all. Is it a case that there are Meath supporters that cannot accept that maybe progress and improvement has been made since there was a change in manager? I don't think anyone that made their debut in last two years could consider themselves as established given the struggles in the team which they entered."

Replying To Blackspot09:  "It might be if they all got regular game time this year but a good few ended up with about 10 minutes of championship football.

As for making progress and improvement. Hopefully that is the case but I think it would be best to wait until around this time next year after we've had a championship campaign that wasn't against middle of the road Division 3 teams and dreadful Division 4 teams. I'll will judge our progress and improvement then."

Replying To winatallcost:  "Sean Brennan, Sean Coffey, Aaron Lynch, Conor Grey and Harry O Higgins all played in 6 tailteann cup games.

Adam O Neill in 5 and Ciaran Caulfied 4.

Michael Flood played in 2 after playing full league campaign while Eoghan Frayne had two substitute appearances and contributed 2 pts.

Who are a good few that got 10 mins? Are there more than the mentioned or perhaps just a couple? Tell me another county team that has introduced more new players in such a significant way in the country this year?"

Replying To Blackspot09:  "Well at the risk making this sound like it has something to do with our previous manager but Antrim I am pretty sure blooded a similar amount of new players this year. Again as I said it is very common for new management to give a lot of new players .

The other point about some Meath supporters not admitting there is clear progress and improvement has to be the main point. There is simply no way of judging this until after next year despite what you and others say. Lets see after the next years league and the All Ireland championship .

I would compare this situation to Dunshaughlin on the Club scene. They ended up in Intermediate and deservedly so based off their performances but it was clear very early on they were far too good for that grade and came out of it pretty comfortably as well as getting promoted easily from League 1B . Have they improved??? Who knows. They went straight back down to 1B this year and IMO we won't know for about 4 or 5 weeks time when the group stages of the senior championships are finished if they have improved or were just too good for the Intermediate grade.

The same can be said for this Meath team as far as I am concerned. Well done on winning the TC it was a great day out and a good performance but we won't know until this time next year if we are genuinely making progress or it was just we were too good for the grade we were playing in."

Replying To ratlag:  "Low and behold, another post using commons sense and logic in looking at where we are. I'm starting to get worried that there might actually start to be balanced debates held on this forum in the not to distant future"

Replying To royaldunne:  "Yeah it ain't a new team. This talk of Colm bringing them in is not accurate, coffee , Flynn O'Connor hickey Costello etc we're all there."

Replying To Blackspot09:  "Well at the risk making this sound like it has something to do with our previous manager but Antrim I am pretty sure blooded a similar amount of new players this year. Again as I said it is very common for new management to give a lot of new players .

The other point about some Meath supporters not admitting there is clear progress and improvement has to be the main point. There is simply no way of judging this until after next year despite what you and others say. Lets see after the next years league and the All Ireland championship .

I would compare this situation to Dunshaughlin on the Club scene. They ended up in Intermediate and deservedly so based off their performances but it was clear very early on they were far too good for that grade and came out of it pretty comfortably as well as getting promoted easily from League 1B . Have they improved??? Who knows. They went straight back down to 1B this year and IMO we won't know for about 4 or 5 weeks time when the group stages of the senior championships are finished if they have improved or were just too good for the Intermediate grade.

The same can be said for this Meath team as far as I am concerned. Well done on winning the TC it was a great day out and a good performance but we won't know until this time next year if we are genuinely making progress or it was just we were too good for the grade we were playing in."

Replying To bdbuddah:  "We have a lot of new players and existing players who have been brought to the fore under COR that weren't to the fore before.
You need to move on from thinking saying anything positive about COR must be a slight against Andy.
Andy did well in his 6 years, but, as you said your self after 6 years we needed a new voice.
It's time to move on."

Replying To bdbuddah:  "That's like saying Italy are not in the top 32 soccer teams in the world because they did not play in last world cup, absolutely nobody would accept that as a 'fact'.
Stating as a 'fact' that we are now ranked 17 in the country is a way of putting down the current team. We are a division 2 team who played in this competition due to the convoluted qualification structure that rewarded Sligo (who played in D4 this year and will play D3 next year) entry into main competition by virtue of beating NY and London."

Replying To Blackspot09:  "Well at the risk making this sound like it has something to do with our previous manager but Antrim I am pretty sure blooded a similar amount of new players this year. Again as I said it is very common for new management to give a lot of new players .

The other point about some Meath supporters not admitting there is clear progress and improvement has to be the main point. There is simply no way of judging this until after next year despite what you and others say. Lets see after the next years league and the All Ireland championship .

I would compare this situation to Dunshaughlin on the Club scene. They ended up in Intermediate and deservedly so based off their performances but it was clear very early on they were far too good for that grade and came out of it pretty comfortably as well as getting promoted easily from League 1B . Have they improved??? Who knows. They went straight back down to 1B this year and IMO we won't know for about 4 or 5 weeks time when the group stages of the senior championships are finished if they have improved or were just too good for the Intermediate grade.

The same can be said for this Meath team as far as I am concerned. Well done on winning the TC it was a great day out and a good performance but we won't know until this time next year if we are genuinely making progress or it was just we were too good for the grade we were playing in."

Replying To brian:  "RatLag I think that's a bit disingenuous of a comment. Most on here provide very balanced debate. People will disagree but accepting of other's opinions. I had a different point of view to you last week but accepted your points. You explained your point in response to my query to you and I was accepting. That's how things here work for the most part.

However there's one or two posters that just love a contrarian point of view and need "attention" who throw their toys when people call them out. I'm not labelling you or black spot there, I think you both make good points and try to balance your arguments, and generally do it very well. I've all the time for posters like yourselves that have a slightly different opinion but you back it up.

Where things go down hill is where one poster in particular tries to act like an in the know when everyone can see he's not, who states opinion as facts and and there's a few posters who throw out random point about they can't and don't back up. Some of these were calling for the mangers head and boycotting games and not going to TC games. These posters have come out now and are trying to play down the TC victory, and would've been the same coming calling for the managers head if we hadn't won it.

If you look at said one poster, he says we're the 17th best team in Ireland now. When i suggested that we were somewhere in the 14-20 ranked bracket before the league he rejected it and said only promotion and all Ireland series was what was being aimed for and was acceptable…

There's some great posters on here, Seadog, Crinigan, Leitrim etc who try and stay positive, have a great depth of knowledge of the club and underage scene and like you and black spot are saying yes a good year but we need to judge this year on next year and how we do then. The benefits of this year are nothing without a performance next year is quite right, but we need to give praise where it's due too to a bunch of lads that went out, embrace a competition and won it. Most of these lads were in their 1st or second year on the panel.

Colm and his team have adapted over the year and learned. Mick O'Dowd and Andy McEntee before him had their moments too and learned and adapted. We needed to allow for that with this team. They made calls and admitted where they went wrong too. They were going to having teething pains which occurred from league game 3 to the Offaly game. However in each game of the TC you could see things bedding in, getting better and confidence growing. And hopefully that carries over into 2024.

Unfortunately after last season confidence was low and a natural end was there. Andy for the great work he did had no more to give and things needed freshening up. I was numb after last season and felt all we could hope for was an improvement which I think we've seen by the end. I was naturally disappointed we ended up in the TC but I hope to see the benefits of winning a trophy has on this panel of player next year. A team holiday and bonding and the extra time they had together in getting to the final helps. Andy McEntee himself said he'd have loved to have had the extra time you get as you go deeper into the championship.

As you rightly say the full benefits of this season will only be fully judged after the 2024 season. I think they're coming into that from a much better place than last year."